(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a construction of a toilet seat, and more particularly, to one that allows silent, gradual, steady lifting of the seat for sanitary purposes and which prevents malfunction of the lifting.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
On average, one has to go to the bathroom six up to ten times. However, toilet seats generally available in the market are not designed with an automated lift up mechanism. Residual urine on the seat may result if the male user does not urinate accurately or does not lift up the seat before urination, which can be inconvenient and distasteful for the female user. Further problems include bacteria infection, skin diseases, discomfort, bad odors, and/or offensive appearance sight which could result in conflict between the two genders. As a result, there is now the improvement of a toilet cover that automatically lifts up. But the improvement usually operates via spring-load or hydraulic, meaning one has to hold down the seat before use and the seat lacks a deferred lift up function. Both the USA Patent Publication No. 096211, for a Fluid-based Time Automatic Lifting Toilet Seat and an ROC Patent Publication No. 276480, for an improved construction of a Fluid-based Time Automatic Lifting Toilet Seat Fixture, though teaching a silent and automatic lifting mechanism of the toilet seat, are found with the following defects according to the findings of hands-on installation by this inventor: (1) an inherited protrusion of the seat results once it is adapted to the toilet to prevent readjustment of the angle of the protrusion that constitutes a barrier in the installation of the seat in case of a larger cistern; (2) the lifting provided by weighted balance is controlled by the flow of the fluid, and an unsteady flow or uneven level of the ground often frustrates or even causes the failure of the lifting motion; (3) once the seat lifts up for approximately 45 degrees, a resistance is created which stops the lifting process, and the seat will no longer lift up if such resistance is not overcome; and (4) as the lifting mechanism operates on the liquid contained in a front and a rear compartment without any partition, the fluid in the rear compartment fails to completely flow back to the front one when the seat lifts up to 90 degrees and the backflow of the fluid to the rear compartment affects the motion and timing of the lifting.
Another improvement as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,684,416B1 for a construction of Automatic Lifting Toilet Seat does achieve improvements for those defects found with the constructions disclosed in the previously mentioned patent publications. All three patents share the common problem that, although the seat does slowly lift up, the lifting process starts immediately after the user has left the toilet seat and so the seat may hit the user, which shows that further improvement is warranted for the construction and arrangement of the members in the box containing liquid for the lifting mechanism.